Support Young People to Lead Social Change

Kehkasha is 17 years old and has grown up in the Nizamuddin Basti in Delhi.  She joined The YP Foundation as a young leader in a project to increase civic awareness and active citizenship in December 2015. An aspiring lawyer, she is passionate about ensuring the rights of women and girls in her community.

In May 2017, Kehkasha co-led a Safety Audit with 14 other youth leaders or Yuva Netas in three urban slum communities. Through this month-long audit, the Yuva Netas took note of the shortcomings which posed a threat to their safety, and what was needed to be done to make the youth, especially young girls, feel safe.

Kehkasha and her team surveyed the audit areas through two days of community-mapping walks, noting issues they felt either enhanced or threatened their safety. For Kehkasha, one of her favorite moments during the walk was getting to explore parts of her neighbourhood that she had not seen before the audit. She says “Even though I live in Nizamuddin, I have still not seen so much of it! And before this, I had never actively thought about my surroundings and its relation to mine and others safety.”

“At the same time”, she says, “one of the biggest challenges was dealing with the men gawking at us, and boys passing comments as we walked by. This is something that we face on a daily basis but during the audit, we realized how bad it can become.”

Kehkasha and the other Yuva Netas were part of intensive sessions to build perspective on the issue of safety and develop a comprehensive understanding on issues like this that young girls face everyday. Through various activities, they were encouraged to discuss their daily experiences while assessing feelings of safety through the lens of gender, age, religion and socio-economic class, among other things.

“One of the most interesting things during the session on safety was when Tanya Didi made us map the paths and areas that we all travel every day as girls. It made me realize that our safety has to extend beyond just our homes. Unless we can say that we are safe in every space, are we really safe? That session made me think about just how complicated but important matters of safety are.”

A major aspect of this audit was to move beyond placing the onus of ensuring safety on infrastructural changes, and to start thinking about the non-tangible environment that has to exist to compound the overall feeling of safety. For this, it was very important to the Yuva Netas that they reach out not only to official authorities but also to members of their own community. It is for this reason that it was decided that an open exhibition would be held, allowing other concerned community members to also be a part of the campaign.

“The exhibition was amazing!” exclaimed Kehkasha, “That is the only word I can use to describe it.” For Kehkasha, like many of the other Yuva Netas, the exhibition was also a platform to experiment with their learnings and experience personal growth. She said, “there were so many things I learned over the past few months, but I was able to apply it practically at the exhibition. The fact that it was an open exhibition was challenging but it gave us more freedom and opportunities. Being able to go up to strangers and tell them about our work was exciting, even though I was very nervous!”

The exhibition displayed the Yuva Neta’s photographs and analysis, with details about the campaign and their findings. The exhibition was held at the entry path to the SNN community, just off the main road where a lot of passers by and community members were drawn in to see the pictures and speak to Kehkasha and other Yuva Netas about the project and the larger issues of safety. At the same time, there were also people who were indifferent or uninterested in what was happening, which is where the Yuva Netas beautifully stepped in.

“There were many who avoided us as we walked up to them,” says Kehkasha,“or even told us directly that they were not interested. But there were so many more who wanted to see what we had put up, who wanted to hear what we had to say. When so many people took interest in these kinds of matters is when I realized that our safety really is our collective concern.”

The exhibition was attended by over 200 people, with approximately 150 individuals signing a petition extending their support to the Kehkasha and the other Yuva Netas. The findings from the audit are being collated into a report which will be handed over to the local authorities, where they will discuss in detail the audit, report and the way forward. The recommendations are for infrastructural changes that are to be brought by the concerned authorities, but also for what the community itself can do to ensure a safe environment. Because as Kehkasha aptly said, our safety is our concern.

The YP Foundation is committed to building the leadership of young people like Kehkasha and support them to ensure better futures for themselves and their communities. This work is not possible without the support of generous donors like you. Please continue supporting us and talking about our work to others, to help us reach out to larger communities of young people and create rights aware and sensitive leaders of social change. Thank you!